Spanish and British police were today investigating whether a man behind bars on the Costa del Sol after confessing to the murders of two teenage girls served time in Britain for sex attacks.

Tony Alexander King, 38, has admitted killing 17-year-old Sonia Carabantes in August and 19-year-old Rocio Wanninkhof in 1999, according to Spanish police.

Now they are checking whether King changed his name previously.

One possibility is that before doing so, King may have served a jail sentence in the UK for attempting to strangle seven women.

The bartender, who has lived in Spain for six years, confessed to the murders of Sonia and Rocio after DNA samples taken from his home matched samples recovered from the crime scenes. King, from London, also told police he had raped at least three other women in southern Spain in recent years.